“It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident:
‘That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
From the Declaration Of Independence.
Addition: Perhaps you can still govern men by assuming their wickedness as well as having their consent, for a little while anyways.
Another Addition:
“My conclusion, then, is contrary to the common opinion which claims that the people, when in power, are variable, unstable, and ungrateful; and I affirm that these faults are no more common to them then to individual princes.”